Summer tends to be a busy time with many of us out and about cooling off, enjoying the great outdoors. There’s no denying Gibraltar also fills up considerably with many thousands of tourists keen to lap up our attractions. We wish that we could all, collectively, be more mindful and more responsible about our rubbish. Whether in the sea, beaches, parks, playgrounds, or on main roads, plastic bags and other food waste is seen almost everywhere, usually lurking around one corner or other.

Lets Use the bins provided and remind friends, family and even people you see chucking stuff not to litter! It’s not cool, its an eyesore, and in our particular environment positively dangerous to birds and marine life. In the knowledge that many plastics break down in the marine environment and enter the food chain this also threatens human health, it’s a no-brainer really – its in everyone’s interest to deal with rubbish responsibly.

The 2016 Clean Up, is a visual part of a year round campaign we work on with agencies and the community to improve on Gibraltar’s littering issues. We believe it is of value as it helps raise awareness, helps clean up important habitats, and reinforces to the rest of the world that Gibraltar supports the inspiring global movement to help clean up the environment. The date then is the 24th of September. Team leaders will be emailed this week.

We shall have a number of activities including a main street awareness event in the run up to the day itself. More news in the press soon.

Our local campaign has achieved many positives for our local environment but there is still more to be done.

A reminder that the Eco Park based at Flint Road (off Devil’s Tower Road) accepts any recyclable waste and is open 7 days a week.

We welcome the recent announcement by the SDGG that a replacement for the mass balloon release has been identified. We are assured it will have no negative environmental impact which we obviously welcome.

With higher temperatures any air and noise pollution creates an ever-greater impact on those nearby. As we receive complaints from affected residents we continue to highlight and press for best available technology to be used as our proximity to any industrial activity means EU stds alone are not adequate.

The ESG would like to remind the public that bathing water quality can be checked on the Environmental Agency’s website under monitoring to verify the status of the water quality in general at any particular beach –we say in general because the data is always a few days behind and can only give an indication.

You can email us at esg@gibtelecom.net for more information and visit our website esg-gib.net for all our press releases. Thanks for listening.